Why Your Privacy Concerns Are Misplaced

FORTUNE – The public backlash against Dropbox for its decision to appoint former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to its company’s board of directors has ignited a fierce debate about a technology company’s role in mitigating government-led Internet surveillance. This is not the first time this subject has been in the spotlight and it raises some very interesting issues worth clarifying.

Outside of completely unplugging from the grid, there really is no way to avoid being a beacon of personal data for services that feed off of the minute details of your life. As an unintended side effect, unplugging may even make ourselves more conspicuous. After all, many of the top names on the National Security Agency’s suspect list are culled from the ranks of people who are habitually overcautious about leaving any trace. The year is 2014, and dissolving your digital footprint is no longer a practical option.

We live our lives online, and astronomical amounts of information are being collected from us daily — heart rates, hopes and dreams, what we had for breakfast — sometimes before we know that information ourselves. A daunting 2012 Carnegie Mellon University study revealed that an average user would need 76 work days to read through all of the privacy policies they confront in a year.

However, it’s too late for us to worry that companies might have access to our data. The truth is that they already do. These data goldmines will only continue to grow, but so too should our knowledge of the potential misuse of our private information. Consumers need to put aside their generic privacy concerns and instead redirect their attention toward ensuring increased education, accountability, and transparency.

During World War II and McCarthyism, personal information was routinely used to violate individual liberties to achieve specific political agendas. Today, if a company misuses personal data, the potential repercussions against that company would likely far outweigh any damage the individual might face. Just a few years ago, social networking service, Path, was under fire for storing users’ contact information without their permission. A developer first uncovered this security hole, and immediately ignited a PR storm with a single tweet. After intense backlash, the FTC fined Path $800,000, along with subjecting the company to 20 years of scrutiny. Despite fixing the problem and issuing a heartfelt apology, Path will forever be affected by this privacy invasion.

The Path debacle’s silver lining is that one outraged person was able to compel an entire company to change. Whistleblowers, whistle-tweeters, and anyone in between can now launch devastating PR nightmares with just a few keyboard strokes. For the first time since the dawn of the printing press, the pendulum of power has swung in favor of the individual.

Another example of the complex nature of privacy transgressions in this day and age is what happened to Google GOOG when it brought Germany Street View, which provides panoramic views of streets across the globe. German citizens are understandably sensitive to privacy issues, stemming from a painful history with government surveillance. Therefore, the public was outraged when Street View cars started photographing their homes, protesting to such an extent that they were soon given the ability to opt out and have their homes blurred. The story should have ended there.

Unfortunately, it was later revealed that Street View cars were also illegally collecting private data from Wi-Fi networks while they were driving through neighborhoods. A German privacy regulator fined Google 145,000 euros ($189,225), stating that it was “one of the biggest data protection rules violations known.” Google was certainly culpable for illicitly amassing this information, but did they deserve the backlash for bringing their technology to Germany in the first place? Google was both in the wrong and right, and many privacy issues also live in this murky area.

There’s a recurring theme that emerges when we look at threats of potential privacy infractions. Many users immediately put the blame on companies simply because they are using personal data to power a service — whether or not a transgression actually unfolded. This is not an effective solution to bolstering privacy protection. Users need to deflect their concerns about companies having access to sensitive information, and instead advocate for higher industry standards across the board.

Similarly, companies need to focus on preventing abuses from happening, educating their teams on the latest security threats, and releasing products with built-in privacy protections. Germany Street View should have automatically blurred out images of homes, and then allowed users to opt in if they wanted their information included.

Privacy-friendly features like Apple’s location alerts, which notify users when apps are collecting location information, need to be the norm, not the exception. The key to winning the privacy war is a mutual respect for the valuable data these services are built upon.

An informed public needs to ensure that personal data is handled responsibly by demanding that companies have the following protocols in place: 1) clear information on the way personal data is used (i.e. not buried in the Terms of Agreement), 2) a cohesive plan if a privacy infraction occurs, and 3) engineers that are up to speed on the latest security standards. If a company fails to acquiesce to these demands, then users must take a step back and balance their privacy concerns with the novelty and utility the service provides. By fighting for transparency and remaining vigilant, we can reap the benefits of the personal data economy — without ever having to take a step off the grid.

Timothy Tuttle is the founder & CEO of Expect Labs, a technology company that is building a platform to power a new generation of intelligent assistants. Tim started his career at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, where he received his PhD.

Condoleezza Rice calls Edward Snowden ‘a traitor’

FORTUNE — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice isn’t a fan of Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked a trove of classified documents detailing widespread spying by the U.S government on its citizens and allies.

“I have absolutely no respect for him,” she said Wednesday at Venture Scape, the National Venture Capital Association’s annual convention in San Francisco. “He’s not a hero, he’s a traitor.”

Rice, who also served as President George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor, insisted that Snowden should have gone through proper channels to report any illegal surveillance instead of going to the media. Challenged about whether the agencies would have reacted to his concerns, she demurred, saying “at least he could have tried.”

“Edward Snowden didn’t go to work for Disney,” Rice said. “What did he think the N.S.A. did?”

Critics of the surveillance program scoff at the idea that Snowden or anyone else could have prompted a serious review of government spying through internal channels. Several members of Congress who supposedly monitored the programs have said that they were largely in dark about most of its details or lied to about the extent of the surveillance.

Rice is a polarizing figure who invariably raises the blood pressure of opponents. She played a major role in the Iraq War and the huge expansion of government surveillance, including warrantless wiretaps.

Snowden’s leaks, she said, gave a confusing picture of U.S. spying that even she couldn’t understand. “If I can’t figure out what s going on, I can guarantee you most people can’t figure out what’s going on,” she said. Still, Rice gave qualified support to a review of the current surveillance policies because, as she put it, such programs tend to go “on auto-pilot.”

“I don’t rule out the possibility that there needed to be a review or culling or stopping some of these programs,” Rice said. “But how you get that done is you don’t do it by leaking to the Guardian or Washington Post.”

As for Snowden, who is currently in exile in Russia, Rice said he had better watch his back. Russia, which gave Snowden a temporary visa after U.S. officials withdrew his passport, doesn’t like traitors either, she said.

“If I were Edward Snowden, I’d watch what I eat,” Rice said.

Rice’s track record – particularly the surveillance part – came back to haunt her last month when Dropbox, the online file storage service, named her to its board. Users of the service attacked the company for appointing someone so closely tied to government surveillance and raised concerns about the service’s commitment to privacy.

In response to the uproar, Drew Houston, Dropbox’s chief executive, took to his company’s blog to defend Rice and her appointment.

“There’s nothing more important to us than keeping your stuff safe and secure,” he wrote. “It’s why we’ve been fighting for transparency and government surveillance reform, and why we’ve been vocal and public with our principles and values.”

Asked about her new role at Dropbox, Rice praised the company and its management, but didn’t address the privacy concerns involving her other than to say that privacy issues are hard and companies like Dropbox are struggling with very important issues.

Earlier this week, Rice’s past flared up again when students and faculty at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, expressed outrage at her being chosen as commencement speaker. To defuse the situation, Rice cancelled her scheduled address.

Venture capitalists filling the room at VentureScape, the annual conference of the National Venture Capital Association, gave Rice a far warmer welcome. No one held up protest signs or jeered. In fact, Rice spoke to the choir in terms of her support for immigration reform. Silicon Valley companies widely support the effort, which would make it easier to import engineers and attract foreign entrepreneurs.

But despite intense lobbying by business interests, the immigration bill is stalled in Congress over opposition by House Republicans. They want to revise a Senate bill that would give undocumented immigrants a path to getting U.S. citizenship.

Rice, who has held a number of roles at Stanford University and is currently a professor of political science there, couched the problem in simple terms: You don’t want to chase off someone who just graduated from Stanford.